Ruling in favor of the Plaintiff, who is represented by Parks, Chesin & Walbert, along with co-counsel, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Cynthia D. Wright rejected the Attorney General’s contention that the Georgia State Health Benefit Plan (the “Plan”) is immune from suit. Order (D) 2014.10.09 Def’s Motion to Dismiss. The Plan is administered by the Defendant Department of Community Health (“DCH”), and it provides health care coverage to hundreds of thousands of state employees, teachers and administrators of the State’s local public school systems. The Court found the Plaintiff can sue DCH for breach of contract for failing to provide the benefits it promised once it accepted premiums from its members for enhanced levels of coverage under the Plan.

Matt Maguire and Jenn Coalson protested a $15 million/year award of the Georgia Department of Corrections’ prison commissary contract on behalf of two Georgia-based family-owned businesses. The Department of Corrections had decided to award the contract to a large, national supplier but we were able to prove that the supplier failed to meet the RFP mandatory requirements and, as a consequence, should have been disqualified.

Matt Maguire prevailed in a pre-award bid protest of Georgia’s IT staffing contract which removed certain requirements from the RFP that presented substantial impediments to our client’s ability to supply those services to the state.

In a case that highlights the importance of having legal counsel actively involved when drafting contracts having financial significance, the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld the judgment of the Superior Court of Fulton County that a postnuptial agreement entered into between a husband and his wife was invalid as a matter of law and that the alimony provisions in the contract were unenforceable.

The case arose in the context of a marriage that was having difficulty. At issue was a lengthy letter agreement that the wife, a non-attorney, allegedly drafted to her then-husband, setting out, among other things, the terms of alimony. When the parties ultimately proceeded with divorce, and very large sums of money were at stake, the wife asserted that alimony was governed by the letter agreement. The husband vigorously opposed the wife’s argument, asserting that the alimony provisions had omitted material terms and that the language the wife employed was far too vague to be judicially enforced.

Macon and Bibb County, Georgia were slated to elect a new consolidated Board of Commissioners on July 16, 2013. Because the Department of Justice did not timely pre-clear the statute under the Voting Rights Act, the Bibb County Board of Elections suspended the election. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, PCW attorneys Lee Parks and David Walbert filed an action on behalf of a local voter and candidate to require that the election be held at the earliest practicable, legal date.

Advocates for the disabled cheered a recent Georgia Supreme Court decision that gives injured persons new rights to appear in court. Kesterson v. Jarrett, 291 Ga. 380 (2012). PCW attorney David Walbert represented Kyla Kesterson and her parents in the case, which involved claims of severe birth injuries and cerebral palsy caused by a delayed C-section and hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. The trial court had ruled that Kyla could not be in court during the liability portion of her trial because her condition might elicit sympathy from the jury. The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed.

Matt Maguire, along with a team of lawyers from Balch & Bingham and Huff, Powell & Bailey, obtained reversal in the Georgia Court of Appeals of a trial court’s revocation of two out of state attorneys’ pro hac vice admissions for allegedly violating their duty of candor to the trial court concerning the existence of insurance for their corporate client.

A federal court awarded over $1.6 million in damages and fees in a race discrimination case against Fulton County. Some long overdue justice was delivered after a five day jury trial in the Northern District of Georgia. In a case handled by Parks, Chesin & Walbert attorneys, a federal court entered judgment totaling just over $1,650,000 for the plaintiff in the case of Douglas Carl v. Fulton County and Thomas Andrews (former County Manager). The jury found that Mr. Carl had been passed over for a promotion because he is a white male, in violation of Title VII and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

For more than 30 years, the lawyers at Parks, Chesin & Walbert have been committed to representing clients in a wide array of litigation matters, including constitutional disputes, employment discrimination, civil rights, class actions, government contracting, and catastrophic injury cases.